Looking into Sarah Palin's finances

This post lists the Palins' properties and expensive toys, including several photos. Apart form the new chateau, all properties were acquired before Sarah Palin's book deal.

PART 1 - The properties

Palins' old house

Palin's present house, built at the same time as the sports complex


Palins' present house

The kitchen

Please note the railings reflection

Palins' cabin in Petersville, declared value: $0.00

The Palins own property with Richter and the Hansons


The property owned with the Hansons


Palins' new chateau, built after the book deal. Interesting windows...

PART 2 - The sports complex

PART 3 - The expensive toys

Todd Palin shows off his snowmobile to Greta Van Susteren on Lake Lucille


Todd Palin with one of his snowmobiles


Piper on her four-wheeler


Cousins and their snowmobiles in Petersville. The person in Arctic Cat gear on the right is Willow


Sarah Palin and Piper having fun on another fancy toy


Sarah Palin poses with Todd's Piper seaplane


Greta Van Susteren and Sarah Palin looking at Todd's Piper seaplane

The famous tanning bed

They also own various cars, but I couldn't find exactly which were their own and which were provided by the state. The only vehicle definitely owned by the Palins prior to the book deal is a black VW Jetta Diesel.

Some members of the family appear to have gym memberships and enjoy visiting tanning salons.

PART 4 - The income

PART 5 - The Richters

Article from Bloomberg:

Shortly after she was elected governor, Palin's office signed off on hiring Deborah Richter -- who attended college for a year then worked in bookkeeping and finance jobs -- as director of a division that distributes dividends to Alaskans from the state's oil-wealth savings account. Richter, who said she's known Palin for 13 years, was Palin's gubernatorial campaign treasurer and ran her inaugural committee.

The Richters and Palins also shared an investment: 30 acres of rural property near a lake in Petersville, Alaska, worth $47,300, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough data.

"It sounds like a patronage deal for someone who ran your campaign; that's pretty normal,'' said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. "What's not normal is that they have business dealings together.''

Article from the Juneau Empire:

Alaska Permanent Fund dividend checks barely made it out on time last year after a computer technician accidentally wiped out a data file containing hundreds of thousands of dividend applications.

Recovering from the Permanent Fund Division data loss involved calling in temporary workers to reconstruct lost data. Applications from the increasing number of applications filed online were able to be recovered; but paper applications had to be reconstructed by hand.

"Manually reconstructing" thousands of several hundred dollar payments from a state dividend fund? That sounds like it could be open to abuse.

Why did the Governor refuse to allow disclosure of the mandated state audit report on the computer failure?

Juneau freelance reporter Bob Tkacz was one of the reporters asking for the transition reports.

"No other governor in my experience has ever kept those reports confidential, and certainly never censored them in the way the Palin administration did," he said.

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The Palins own property with Richter. These properties are listed by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough as owned by PALIN TODD M & SARAH H/ RICHTER SCOTT A and RICHTER INVESTMENTS INC/ PALIN TODD M & SARAH H

PART 5 - The questions

We looked at the properties and expensive toys owned by the Palins until the book deal. Before that deal was signed, the total family income was fairly modest.

Does their lifestyle reflect their income prior to Sarah Palin's resignation as governor?

The Housegate questions resurface yet again. What's the real story behind the construction of the Palin's main residence and the large cabin in Petersville?

The Palins relationship with the Richters involves a committe that could dispose of surplus donations to the Alaska Inaugural Committe by making charitable contributions to organizations of the governor's choice.

What are the names of these charities and what was the total sum of money donated to them?

The relationship also involves a computer failure relating to the Permanent Fund Dividend.

Did any money go missing? Why wasn't the audit regarding the computer failure released for public inspection?

Does the cosy relationship between the Palins and the Richters seem a bit fishy?

PART 6 - Conclusion

Study the photos and documents carefully. If anybody uncovers any other information, please share it with us in the comments section, including links whenever possible.

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Supporting documents and resources:
Tax return 2006
Tax return 2007
IRS
Financial disclosure
Alaska Inaugural Committe report
Mat-Su Borough property search
Gryphen's post about the cabin
Article from the ADN
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